1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an image correction apparatus and method.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are occasions where noise reduction processing is executed in order to reduce noise in the image of a subject. For example, there is prior art that reduces noise increased by gain processing and offset processing when contrast is improved without changing visual average luminance (see the specification of Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-27890). Further, there is prior art that diminishes the conspicuousness of random noise increased when a gain adjustment is utilized to correct a difference in level in terms of an optical black level (see the specification of Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-354384).
Furthermore, there is prior art in which when a specific area that is part of an image is printed, a gamma conversion that has been adapted to the specific area is performed in order to improve the tone of the specific area (see the specification of Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 60-139080).
Printers and the like that detect the image of a face from within the image of a subject and brighten the detected face image are being sold. However, merely brightening the overall image of the subject in-order to brighten the portion that is the face image can result in the background becoming too bright. This in turn can result in an imbalance between the face image and the background.